


Five Times

by Llyneth



Category: Drag-On Dragoon | Drakengard, Drakengard 3
Genre: Accord has a weird and possibly slightly dark sense of humour, Accord trying to give Zero things she likes but failing because Zero is Zero, Blood and Injury, F/F, Too many Accords, Very brief mentions of previous Nier & Drakengard characters, Zero swears like a sailor, mentions of Michael - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 05:31:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14948468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llyneth/pseuds/Llyneth
Summary: Or alternatively: "Five times Accord gave Zero a present and one time Zero had enough of her shit and decided to give her one back".Accord/Zero - Will add more tags as i update.





	1. Zero's blade

 

The first was less a gift and more an acknowledgment that they were working together. Allies, Accord had said. But she'd left it on her table, wrapped in plain brown paper and tied off with a bow, so Zero figured it counted. As it was, she only accepted it because no weapon she had stolen – not from the kitchens of wealthy manors, nor from the corpses of guards unlucky enough to surprise her on her way back from thieving – could dream to pierce the breast of an intoner.

She needed dragons, and  _dragon bone_.  

So she'd unwrapped the present – the first she'd ever received in her short life – giddy from nerves and adrenaline, the 'oh shit, this is real' feeling fluttering around in her stomach at war with the thought of finally getting something for herself that she hadn't had to steal or pay _steeply_  for later, and- 

The paper ripped, and she laughed.  

 _That fucking, goddamn..._   

 _Flowers_.

The sword was covered in them. At least a dozen of the fucking things, wrapped around the hilt of the blade, white as bone and the exact design of the parasite that killed her,  _reanimated her corpse_ , shat out 5 little intoner sisters, and threatened to end the world.   

_"This weapon will remind you of your purpose." Accord had said not too long ago, nodding soberly towards the parcel._

_"As If I could forget." She had shot back, teeth bared. But confusingly the only response she got was a salacious wink, Accord swaggering out the door like the cat that got the cream._

"That little shit." She grinned at the memory, pissed and delighted in equal measure at Accord's sense of humour.  

With enthusiasm she freed the rest of the sword from its paper sheath, noticing too the design running down its length: a robed figure holding a cross, head bathed in sunshine, her robe giving way to pure white wings. 

Ha! A saint. What a _joke_. 

Zero barked a dry laugh.   

Could she be any more ridiculous?  


	2. Gauze & salve

 

The second present popped into existence when her back was turned, landing squarely on the table with a dull clap. The small noise had startled Zero out of the shallow sleep she'd been in, slumped next to the front door, sword in hand, and she'd jumped immediately to her feet.   

After ten minutes of meticulously checking shadows, poking her blade into every dark corner just to be safe, then taking stock of her surroundings: no intruders she could see, Michael-  _Mikhail_  was alive and bathing in his own shit as normal, her small supply of food hadn't been stolen, and there were no bandits hiding in wait outside her door, waiting for her to fall asleep again... 

She finally picked her way to the table, confronting the roll of clean bandages and glass jar of salve laying innocently upon its surface. She reached out a hand to it, happy to stop her ruined arm trailing blood through the whole damn house at least, but then she stopped.  

There was a note attached to the jar.

The front was plain, crisp and slightly yellowed, containing someone's looping approximation of her name and a few squiggled hearts and flowers. When Zero flipped it over to read the inside, she saw a short note written over a chicken scratch picture. It was a rendition of someone out in the woods- a girl with a big bow in her hair, probably Zero herself - angrily raising a bandaged stump to the sky, a bubble trailing from her slanted mouth proclaiming 'FUCK'S SAKE, DUMMY' in block letters, with a misshapen bird flapping around in the distance.

Zero didn't have to read the signature at the bottom to guess who it was from.

"Zero,  

You really ought to start taking care of yourself - You've bled right through your bandages, and that infection isn't going to fix itself. I've left you a new roll of gauze and some cream, it should last you a week at least. I'll be paying you a visit once you've run out.

 - Accord " 

She pulled her arm back.  

Zero didn't need anyone's damn pity. Even if she hadn't changed the bandages for days 'cause she'd run out and couldn't raid houses to find more in her condition. Even if the inflammation and the smell made her want to puke. Even if she couldn't hunt worth a damn 'cause she couldn't see straight, she'd rather die than rely on some asshole's charity.  

She'd rather die than give up the gnawing wound that reminded her day in, day out of everything she lost in one single, terrible, _colossal_  fuckup. Even if it festered, hell – even if she lost the arm, she wouldn't care. She'd lost a bigger piece of her that day, when she'd run into her sisters' waiting arms with a swagger in her step, so sure that she had nothing left to lose.  

_She knew better now._

Never trust anyone again. Never _rely_ on anyone again.

Zero wasn't stupid; she had no friends, no allies or confidants. Only people she could use - and be used by in return. She allowed it because it was necessary to finish the job. Nothing else. Nothing _more._

  So Zero turned her back on the gifts, ignoring them as she went about her daily business. After a week of Accord not showing up to yell at her, she figured she must have got the hint and given up on her. Like everyone else did. _Like she should. Like she was supposed to._  

She was wrong.  

" _Why_ are you ignoring the medical supplies I got for you?"  

Accord huffed one day, propped up against the pillar in the middle of the house. It took Zero a few moments for her sluggish, fever-addled brain to catch up, and realize that yes, the space _had_ been empty a second before but now there's a girl in it, a very familiar girl. And she's looking at you like you've been in the middle of a conversation and zoned out like a fucking moron, instead of her just appearing mid-sentence.

"Don't just  _barge_  in here-"  

"Because that fever you're running is going to push your recovery right back if you don’t do anything about it. I thought you wanted to kill the intoners yourself?" She challenged and kicked off the wall, boots clicking on wood.

"But as things stand now" Her eyes glinted behind the thin wire frames, lips quirking upwards, "If someone - say a thief, or guards, or an angry mob of villagers - decided to break in here, i highly doubt you'd be able to fight them off. Even _with_ Mikhail's help. Isn't that just sad?" She ended on a melodramatic sigh, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face.

 _O_ _h, no._  Low blow.  

Zero winced, turning the expression into a snarl when Accord approached her. 

"Shut up! I can take care of myself." 

Accord stopped, then slowly raked her eyes up Zero's form, sweaty and shivering and huddled under her one ratty bedsheet. Her mouth curled into a smile, pressing one gloved hand against her lips when Zero tried to act like she wasn't shaking right out of her skin. 

"Oh, Suuuuure you can!" She replied, drawing the syllable out as patronizingly as she could manage, then turned to the table. "And you can start by using these." 

She scooped the items up, then walked briskly over to shove them right in Zero's face. She even shook the jar a little, sloshing the contents inside. For emphasis.  

Getting the hint because she wasn't an idiot, Zero swiped them right out of her hands with a low growl. Then immediately doubled over in pain, her vision exploding into thousands of tiny stars. A groan escaped her lips before she could silence it, and she felt the bed dip under Accord's weight.

"Don't you," She gasped between gritted teeth, clawing blindly in Accord's general direction, "fucking dare."

Her fingers closed around the meat of Accord's arm, digging in, but she didn't pull away. Instead she just sat back on her haunches, calmly collecting the unraveling roll and jar from where they'd rolled between the sheets, and shimmied closer to Zero's side.

"I said-"

"I know." Accord blinked, voice suddenly quiet and serious, simmering with underlying anger. The change made Zero's reply: to curse, or protest, or suggest a place to stick her shitty gifts, shrivel and die in her throat. She met her eyes, flint-grey and tired, realizing for the first time that Accord _was done with Zero's shit._ Zero had kinda assumed Accord had limitless energy - for pissing her off, for being a condescending asshole, for taking everything Zero could give her and more with a smile on her face and a spring in her step.

But Accord was done - closed off, tightly wound, angrier than she ever expected considering all Zero had done was ignore her shit. Which was par for the course at this point. So that meant that Accord had really been worried - and pissed as all hell - when Zero's wounds went untreated.

Something about that thought made Zero's stomach do an odd little flip.

"Hey...uh" Zero started, the silence hanging thick as a sheet between them, making her wish that she wasn't so goddamn awful at this. Accord said nothing and fiddled with the side of her bandage, untucking it in preparation to be unwound. Zero cleared her throat, removed the death grip she still had on Accord's other arm.

"Look, technically i'm already dead. So the infection probably wouldn't have killed me. Again. Quit being so pissy about it already."

Silence.

After a moment of waiting for Accord to move, or release her arm, or yell at her, and nothing nothing of the sort happening, Zero soldiered on.

"And what's it to you? As long as i can fight it doesn't matter if my arm's rotting off or some shit. It's not like i'm planning to survive for much longer anyway."

"It matters." Accord started quietly, and Zero almost jumped at her voice, "It matters because I- look." She sighed and finally looked zero in the eye, a bit of the tension leaving her shoulders.

"I can't tell you - sorry but i can't. Those are the rules." Leaning back, she crossed her arms, then slipped the jar into her lap and eased off the cap. Zero eyed the cream dubiously.

"Uh-huh. You keep saying that."

"Because it's true."

"Doesn't mean it's not bullshit."

Accord smiled a little, at ease now they were back in their comfortable rhythm and shuffled closer, reaching once again for the bloodied bandages wrapped around her arm. Zero pulled it up and out of reach, eyebrows raising.

"Didn't agree to you playing doctor, Accord. I can do it myself."

A sigh.

"Look." She said, voice wavering slightly, " I meant what i said. We both want the same thing - a branch where the flower is destroyed. For that to happen, you need to recover. Punishing yourself for what happened by letting this continue-"

"I'm not-"

"Isn't going to help anyone. So really... there's no sense being stubborn about it. Just let me do this. Unless you plan on regenerating your arm anytime soon?"

Accord's voice ticked up at the end, raising an expectant eyebrow and meeting Zero's eyes in a challenge. Zero grimaced, unsurprised that Accord figured it out, but annoyed that she decided to call her out on it anyway.

"Not. Gonna. Happen."

"Thought so. Could you shift a bit? I need to get the other side."

"Uh. Yeah." Zero slouched down into the blanket and hard mattress underneath her, trying to make herself relax into Accord's foreign touch. She twisted a little to give her more room to work, but Accord just used the extra room to plaster herself against Zero's side.She watched Accord work in silence for several minutes, then decided to throw her a bone.

"Accord?"

"Hmm?"

"... Thanks."

As Accord smiled down at her, unwinding the soiled cloth with surprisingly gentle hands, Zero fixed her sight on a spot to the left of her head and thought to herself: 

_You're using her and she's using you. It's nothing._

_She doesn't care about you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was a bit angstier (angst-ier? is that a word?) than the last one. Also a lot longer. Consistency!


End file.
